Kitchen Nightmares' Chef Gordon doesn't like menu pictures

So on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, Chef Gordon made several negative comments about a guy having pictures in his menu. One comment even went to far as to say something to the effect of he wouldn't eat at a place with pictures in the menu.

I am curious to know your opinions, expert and/or not, as to whether you agree with his comments or if you think he's just a food prude.

I wonder, because I know many successful restaurants with pictures in their menus, and their popularity would argue that their food is good.

Is it a "red flag" if a restaurant has pictures of their food? Do you avoid such restaurants?

Do you find that pictures entice you, make your mouth water and more likely to order a pictured item?

Thanks,
Tom

GeneralTsao wrote:I wonder, because I know many successful restaurants with pictures in their menus, and their popularity would argue that their food is good.

I'm not sure if popularity should be used as an argument that a place's food is good. See: Olive Garden, Chile's, Applebee's, etc.

Anyway, I'm not adverse to pictures on the menu if I'm in a diner. Outside of that, I think it's tacky.

In an ethnic restaurant, where much of the cuisine might not be familiar to Western diners, pictures can some times help (think LSC). Other than that, I'll agree that anyplace not serving The Nannerpus or some of his relatives should probably forgo the pictures.

I'm with steve. If the food is unfamiliar to potential customers, then sure, pics are OK, especially if it's not a very upscale place. Otherwise, they're incredibly tacky.

Yeah, I'd only expect to see it in an Asian restaurant, most likely, where gaudy enormous menus are part of the fun.

If I want to see what the food in a fancy American restaurant looks like, I read Ronnie Suburban's post about it.

I don't know - if Ronnie were doing the photography, I'd love to see a high-end menu with pictures and a cryptic name like in Asian menus...wouldn't that be fun?

Hi,

I had a friend from Moscow with very limited English vocabulary, especially for food. He loved Denny's menu because he knew at a glance what he would be served.

I will often compare the picture to the food delivered to the table. I check the plate's composition and look to see if everything promised in the photo is present. This can sometimes come back to bite the restaurant. If the soup noodles pictured have three tempura shrimp, they better have those three shrimp.

My knowledge of Korean food advanced considerably once I found a picture recipe book. Suddenly dishes like bi-bim-bop had context, which no server could ever offer.

I don't mind pictures, dessert cart displays or Japanese-style plastic food presentations if they illuminate my understanding of their food offerings. I will often look at other tables to see what they are enjoying, which often influences my choices. The pictures on this website are useful tools, also. While few menus are loaded with pictures, there are occasions I wished there were more used. I have had a few rude surprises of dishes presented did not match my mind's eye expectations. I eat my errors in judgement, though I am sure a picture might have helped keep my expectations balanced and likely made other choices.

Regards,

GeneralTsao wrote:So on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, Chef Gordon made several negative comments about a guy having pictures in his menu. One comment even went to far as to say something to the effect of he wouldn't eat at a place with pictures in the menu.

I am curious to know your opinions, expert and/or not, as to whether you agree with his comments or if you think he's just a food prude.

I wonder, because I know many successful restaurants with pictures in their menus, and their popularity would argue that their food is good.

Is it a "red flag" if a restaurant has pictures of their food? Do you avoid such restaurants?

Do you find that pictures entice you, make your mouth water and more likely to order a pictured item?

Thanks,
Tom

Are you referring to the Sebastian's episode? Gordon’s point was, how many pictures of pizza are needed on a menu, in a pizza place. Personally I don’t mind pictures on menus, especially if it’s a place I’ve never been before, or a dish I’ve never tried.

FWIW, in some countries (e.g. Japan), pictures on menus and plastic displays are more the norm than anything else. And they will show you all 10 pictures of all 10 varieties of ramen or whatever too!

Hi,

I am in the Baltimore-Washington area presently. Several of us went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant Dmnkly and his friends have been championing. Not only are the excellent information and images on their websites and blogs driving traffic. Dom's images are on the walls to influence people's choices, too.

Pictures do go a long way to help you decide. I'd rather a restaurant erred on too many images, than none at all. Is it really tacky to have additional information? They will still be few and far between because of production costs.

Regards,

Depends on the restaurant.

A diner or an ethnic place where preparations might be unfamiliar to most, and stay relatively static over time, fine. But if I go someplace like Blackbird, then I do think pictures on the menu would be tacky (and probably also impractical since the menu, and I would imagine preparations, change more frequently).

Depends on the restaurant.

It also depends on the country and the cuisine (and Ramsey might be taking a European perspective here). If I'm in a European country and see the local cuisine pictured on the menu (as opposed to an exotic cuisine), that's usually a sign that this is a place catering to tourists and not locals, and unless you're searching for a restaurant that cares more about being tourist-friendly than cuisine-friendly, this is probably not a place for you. (There are exceptions -- an occasional celebrated food emporiums in a dense tourist areas -- but, in general, if you haven't heard of the restaurant, this is a good rule.)

I think it is okay depending on the restaurant/cuisine. I know I appreciated the pictures on the Tank Noodle menu to help pick out a few dishes based on the pictures alone.

I think it's a matter of how it's presented: if you format your menu in the same way that a standard chinese place does, it says something about you (in ethnic restaurants, my assumption is that either the proprieter's English isn't that good or that English is inadequate to describe the foods. In a non-ethnic setting, the same menu format might lead me to believe that the proprieter isn't trying.)

However, if you present images of your food as a backdrop to the menu description in some kind of artsy-trendy way, similar to many restaurant websites, I don't think it would be viewed as tacky. I agree with Cathy, pics would probably have prevented several ordering misfires for me. And I don't think, with the advent of the digital camera, it's any more difficult to do this than it is to write a new menu daily. Wouldn't it be funny if the next trendy menu (after the eat-the-menu) consisted exclusively of images, and you had to point like I sometimes do with dim sum?

In short, it's not the what, it's the how.

Mhays wrote:And I don't think, with the advent of the digital camera, it's any more difficult to do this than it is to write a new menu daily.

I have to take exception to this. Sure, it's easy enough to point a pocket digital camera at a plate of food and click the shutter, but there's a big difference between taking a snapshot of your food and creating a photo that is of high enough quality to live on a menu. (We've got plenty of examples of both kinds of pictures right here on LTH forum.) A menu full of food "snapshots" could look both tacky and unprofessional.

I'll give you that - but I'm guessing if a restaurant can hire somebody skilled in formatting a document to produce a menu, they can hire a photographer just as quickly. The fact that it's digital means that new photos could be dropped in to an existing document without reformatting or waiting for processing. I wasn't implying that any schmo can take a food porn shot.

Is it a "red flag" if a restaurant has pictures of their food? Do you avoid such restaurants?

When I go to Europe, I stay clear of any restaurant with photos...they tend to be for tourists and not good.